IAEA reactivates nuclear site investigation in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has activated the investigation process regarding the nuclear facility at the town of al-Kibar in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, eastern Syria.
The process came after a visit paid by Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to Syria and his meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“We’re ready to start working on reigniting high-level dialogue between the IAEA and Syria, focusing on building confidence in the peaceful use of nuclear energy in Syria,” Grossi tweeted following his meeting with Syria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates in Damascus.
https://twitter.com/rafaelmgrossi/status/1770147992223281430
“We are recommitting. It was very important that I had the opportunity to speak directly with President Assad,” Grossi said on Thursday on the sidelines of a nuclear energy meeting in Brussels.
The IAEA began investigating the al-Kibar site in eastern Syria in 2007, weeks after Israeli forces destroyed it in a midnight airstrike.
On September 7, 2007, Israeli warplanes destroyed the site that was alleged to have been a gas-cooled graphite-moderated nuclear reactor under construction, capable of producing enough plutonium for one or two weapons per year. However, the Syrian government has consistently denied the allegations.
In 2011, the IAEA concluded that it was very likely that the site was a reactor that should have been declared to the inspectors of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).